Summary. — Politics has become a central concern in development discourse, and yet the use of political analysis as a means for greater
aid effectiveness remains limited and contested within development agencies. This article uses qualitative data from two governance
“leaders” – the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the World Bank – to analyze the administrative hurdles
facing the institutionalization of political analysis in aid bureaucracies. We find that programing, management, and training practices
across headquarters and country offices remain largely untouched by a political analysis agenda which suffers from its identification
with a small cross-national network of governance professionals.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.